Christ for all of the Nations of the World

This is a song I heard by Newsboys called He reigns.  I believe Christ is for the whole world to be saved.  Thanks for whoever originally posted this video.  I do not own the copy right, but I was inspired by the video.
To make a clarification on one of my earlier posts, I believe that God also God of Israel as it says in the Old Testament.  His name is YHWH (LORD)  Elohim (Creator consisting of Father, Son, and Spirit) Y’Israel.  That’s who He is and you cannot change who He is.  Just like you cannot change your own ethnicity.  You were born with it.  If you are born in Spain and of Spanish ethnicity and you go to France, and live in France and you and your Spanish spouse give birth in France, to a Spanish child, your child and you are still Spanish.  You cannot change your ethnicity even if you were born in another country.  At the same time we know that God’s Kingdom is not of this world, but is a Heavenly Kingdom, and we are just temporary residents and thank God that that Jesus came in the flesh to die for the sins of the whole world, and now the whole world can rejoice in the rejection of Christ, by the Jews, so that the Jews and Gentiles and the whole world may come to know Christ and we can all be part of God’s Kingdom when we choose Jesus as our Savior!!!!  He is also King of all nations and all Kingdoms and every culture, every race, included in God’s Heavenly Kingdom.  Hallelujah!!!  Amen!!!

For the Multitude of the nations which this blog only covers a few, but Jesus Christ wants the whole world to be His!!!

Repent, Accept Christ, and Choose Christ as your Savior for the time is near.  He loves the whole world.

God reigns over the nations; God sits on His holy throne.- Psalm 47:19

Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!  Psalm 46:10

No other name but the name of Jesus

There is a song by this name –

No other name but the name of Jesus

Is worthy of glory

Worthy of honor

Worthy of power and worthy of fame.

Now not to be confused with the Father who is Jehovah or YHWH, Jesus is the Son of God – the reason why there are two separate entities and the best I can describe it is like a body – you have the whole body which is like the Father, and then you have the heart, which is Christ Himself.  The Father was there with His heart ripped out in order make justification for our sins because Christ was slain from the foundation of the world.  How can that be?  Because Christ is outside of time and the Father created time, so everything is in the present as He is concerned.

So there is only ONE WAY – ONLY ONE WAY – ONLY ONE WAY – to get to heaven and that is through Jesus Christ.  What person wouldn’t want to accept someone who gave their life away so that the whole world can life?  He accepts you no matter what you did before you came to know Him, and He still loves you.  Not even the depths of hell can seperate you from the love of God.

There is a very dangerous set of beliefs right now that tie hinduism and Christianity together called New Age.  And then there’s the Interfaith movement, which just accepts everything.  If you accept Jesus You CANNOT ACCEPT EVERYTHING, or else you would make the Word of God null and void, and if you make the Word of God null and void, then there would be nothing redeemable in life because He is after all our sacrifice.  If you have all those “coexist” bumper stickers out there – take out the “t” because the Cross is not in there.  There is no way Christ talked about “coexisting” with other faiths.  He said that Narrow is the Gate and Few are the ones that find it.  He said that there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth for those who don’t believe.

hinduism and Christianity cannot coexist.  Any mixing of anything with Christianity is called syncretism, and is not a pure and true and holy faith.  Time is getting short and there is less and less time for people to spread the word out that get ready – JESUS is coming!!!  Jesus is alive and every other “spiritual leader is dead”.  Jesus had to come down as the Son of God and be submissive to reflect the character of humbleness, which He did by washing the disciples feet.

That’s why there had to be a Son, – there had to be a mediator – Job in the Bible cried out for one man – who would intercede between a Father who is holy and whose wrath is so tremense, who had so many rules because He was testing the people to see if they would really obey Him or not, so then He sent Jesus His Son, down to earth.  The thing that makes the Bible credible from the Jewish Tanak and Torah to the New Testament – Greek and Septuagint- is the fact that there is over 500 prophecies that got filled from the time of the Old Testament until now, and maybe even more.  When someone who is not born again reads the Bible – and they are not filled with the Holy Spirit, or have not accepted Christ as their one and only Savior- they will not be able to get the rhema or revelation, that comes from Him through the Bible so to them it will be another book.  The Holy Spirit then guides them to the truth of God’s Word and it brings Life to those who find it.  Before someone becomes born again, their spirit does not belong to God, but to the enemy, and when they receive Christ, their spirit then becomes the dwelling place for the Holy Spirit, and it takes complete surrender for the spirit to match up to the Holy Spirit.  They may be good people and consider themselves “righteous”, but their righteousness is like filthy rags to God.  And the only way they get cleansed is through the Blood of JESUS.

Before there was the devil, he was called lucifer and he was an angel of light in heaven with God, he was worship leader and he was very beautiful and what the Bible calls a cherub, and he wanted to be God, and he thought he was more beautiful that God and he exalted himself above the throne and was sent crashing down to the second heaven, where the angels and demons dwell and that is called the second heaven.

There were fallen angels called the sons of God back during the time that Noah was on the earth and they were created to teach righteousness with men, but they corrupted themselves by sleeping with the daughters of men and bearing children and those children became giants.

So then lucifer also called satan tempts Eve in the Garden of Eden to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which God has commanded her not to eat so she eats of it, and gives it to Adam (Adam and Eve were the first man and woman on the planet and they were without sin), and after they ate they became exposed to sin.

The whole Bible is showing about how Jesus had to come down and become the blood offering for the sins of the people.  God chose the Jews as a promise to Abraham and His covenant with Him about Isaac – His covenant was through Isaac and to prove that the Bible is accurate – the Hebrew Torah has been preserved throughout generations and the oral tradition has been carried out from generation to generation.  Isaac was a foreshadowing or something to signify or predict that Jesus was coming.  The whole Bible ties in together and is woven so intricately by the hand of God to show the many different ways and facets of Jesus.  There is still only one God and to explain the Father, Son and Spirit is to use the example of the sun – the sun signifies God, and the Light signifies Jesus, and the heat signifies the Holy Spirit.  But God is not the sun – He is much, much greater than the sun.

The first Commandment which still holds true in the New Testament – is to Have no other gods, statues, idols, or molded images before Him (Jehovah or YHWH)- But even Jesus honored that by being submissive to the Father, everything was done for the will of the Father.

The best thing about Jesus is that He came to forgive sins.  The Father God is not the universe, or any other god of any other religion.  He was only revealed to the Jews first through the Abraham and everything else came from Him.  Everything else is a form of idolatry and people that believe in any form of idolatry will be punished, but the best part is God loves you so much He just wants you to be with Him, and if you don’t accept the gift He gave you out of His heart of deep unconditional love then you will not get to know what an awesome God who is different and like no other god that there is.  There is only One God.  Isaiah 43:10 says there is no other god, there never has been, nor shall there be.

John 3:16 – God loved the world so much that He sent His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

Only a fool would say in His heart there is no God.

Now I am using an English Word here for “God” – but He is actually called YHWH – which you cannot pronounce, so they call the Father Jehovah in English.  Then there is Adonai and Elohim and many different names of God, which can be found.  But they are all found in the Father – and the Father has not come down in History, only the Son Jesus, and that was once.  The name Jesus is an English name, but His original Hebrew name is Yeshua.  Jesus called Him Daddy, or Abba- which is the Jewish affectionate term or Papa.

Satan is the god of this world, and YHWH is the God of Heaven.  The name Elohim – the Creator of the world, is the name whose English definition causes confusion because it has a double meaning – it can mean God or god, but according to years of rabbinical teachings and translations – the proper context of the words is found.  The scribes had to practice copying the Scriptures down word for word letter by letter for intimate detail and that is why the Law was passed for the season, so that they were allowed to be meticulous so that they could preserve the Word of God.  The term God we actually use now according to Judeo-Christian beliefs is different – the original word was Elohim.  If you really want to get into a study of the meaning of the words of Elohim, then you would have to use a Thayer’s Lexicon or go to Bible College and study that for a long time, and even then unless you are led by the Holy Spirit you could miss the big picture.  It is the word LORD, which is the One True God, the One we have relationship with as Father, and that is JEHOVAH.  The name Yeshua means the “One who saves”, and He is the only One who can save us from our sins.  Hence the name, Savior.

Jesus said, “I AM the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE – NO ONE can get to the Father, except through Me.”

So as the time closes…I repeat myself as I have done – to know if there are any other people that haven’t found Jesus yet – or are convinced that there has to be more than one way or even no way.  Then this is my plead to you.  You have been blinded, and it is time to open your eyes to the Truth.

God justifies the harm of the righteous from the wicked with His wrath

There is a very serious danger going on in our society right now.  There are very serious lusts and degrees of sins, and while we say that grace does cover and grace washes over our sins, but it is the BLOOD OF JESUS, that cleanses from all unrighteousness, it is those who choose to follow God, and continue in no longer sinning.

Galatians 5 says –

¹⁹ Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery,^[c] fornication, uncleanness, lewdness,²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, ²¹ envy, murders,^[d] drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Colossians 3 says –

⁵ Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, [lustful] passion(s), evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. (emphasis added)

Matthew 5 says –

¹⁹ For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.

We have a society that is based on lewdness, evil thoughts, fornications, etc., and even those that are sinners, unless they come into repentance, wrath is waiting for them.  You don’t want to see His wrath.

I posted a video called the Jealousy of God, and He is so jealous for His bride, the bride of Christ, that He will not tolerate any evil to come to her, and when people harm and persecute the Church, watchout, fury from the wrath of God is waiting for them.

Song of Solomon 8

For love is as strong as death,
Jealousy as cruel as the grave;
Its flames are flames of fire,
A most vehement flame.

Vehement means hot, fiery, passionate, intense.

The fireman in the Fantastic Four is nothing compared to the the vehement God who is known as Jealous and who as wrath.

Jesus cried vehement tears to the Father for us – Hebrews 5:7.

Psalm 58 says –

vs. 9 -Before your pots can feel the burning thorns,
He shall take them away as with a whirlwind,
As in His living and burning wrath.
¹⁰ The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance;
He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked,
¹¹ So that men will say,
“Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
Surely He is God who judges in the earth.”

Proverbs 11 –

The desire of the righteous is only good,
But the expectation of the wicked is wrath.

People don’t see the power of our God, the One who with the touch of His finger can send a forest ablazing, or the touch of His feet can cause the earth to shake like a drunken man tossed back to and fro.

This is a very powerful God, but still people play games, they revel in their sin, and drunkeness, and fornication, without any consideration for their very souls.  They behave like pigs, and one sermon I listened to about the Presence of Pigs, said that if you are in the presence of pigs, you begin to tolerate evil.   God does not tolerate evil, and sometimes He wants to hug us and love us, but that treasure is only for the righteous, but the wicked have to suffer in the punishment of His wrath, when He comes to judge and vindicate and bring justice to His Bride.  We are the Bride of Christ, and we belong to Him.

I feel like a voice crying in the wilderness, “Repent, Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!!!!”

The Jealousy of God

 

 

I know a lot of people cannot understand how God can be jealous, and what it means to be jealous.  The thing is that it is a different kind of jealousy than human jealousy.  It is above that standard.  This sermon based on the revelation of Exodus 34 and Song of Solomon 8 builds again on the foundations of the Justice of Christ, and the Treasures of Love posted on in the previous blog postings.  This sermon after watching it – it really shook me.  I did not know what to do with it or myself.  I knew that something needed to change, and I knew it was me.  It stirred up in my heart and continues to stir up this passion and zeal for God, but sometimes we get so caught up in our “idols” or “gods” that we lose sight of what is really important.  That is this love for God and this fire and zeal for the jealous God, and to hunger and thirst after Him, and to be holy like He is holy.  This speaker points out that God is Jealous and that He is also Grace.  I am hoping you are touched the same way, and maybe even to a greater extent than I am.

 

 

And He has called us friends

We all like to have friends.  Wouldn’t it be nice to realize, and come and accept that God wants to be our friend.

In John 15:15 Jesus says that He no longer calls them servants, but He calls them friends because friends know what their master is doing.

John 15:15
No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.

Here is a prayer from David, who was a man after God’s own heart, where He was still known as Lord (Adonai) which means Master, and LORD, which is YHWH, which means I AM that I AM.

Prayer for Mercy, with Meditation on the Excellencies of the Lord

A Prayer of David.

86 Bow down Your ear, O Lord, hear me;
For I am poor and needy.
² Preserve my life, for I am holy;
You are my God;
Save Your servant who trusts in You!
³ Be merciful to me, O Lord,
For I cry to You all day long.
⁴ Rejoice the soul of Your servant,
For to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
⁵ For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive,
And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.

⁶ Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;
And attend to the voice of my supplications.
⁷ In the day of my trouble I will call upon You,
For You will answer me.

⁸ Among the gods there is none like You, O Lord;
Nor are there any works like Your works.
⁹ All nations whom You have made
Shall come and worship before You, O Lord,
And shall glorify Your name.
¹⁰ For You are great, and do wondrous things;
You alone are God.

¹¹ Teach me Your way, O Lord;
I will walk in Your truth;
Unite my heart to fear Your name.
¹² I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart,
And I will glorify Your name forevermore.
¹³ For great is Your mercy toward me,
And You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

¹⁴ O God, the proud have risen against me,
And a mob of violent men have sought my life,
And have not set You before them.
¹⁵ But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious,
Longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth.

¹⁶ Oh, turn to me, and have mercy on me!
Give Your strength to Your servant,
And save the son of Your maidservant.
¹⁷ Show me a sign for good,
That those who hate me may see it and be ashamed,
Because You, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.

The Lord spoke to Moses as a friend, and yet He is called Master, but He speaks to Moses a man speaks to his friend:

¹¹ So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.

These days we take the word friend so casually, to mean just anyone we get along with is our friend, or all our facebook friends, and acquaintances but in Hebrew, friend, meant someone you were intimate like you were knit together, that is the kind of relationship that Moses had with God.  Even then in the Old Testament, most of the people that were called friends turned out to be deceivers and liars, and unworthy, and I think in Proverbs it says someone is cursed for blessing their friend while rising in the early in the morning – Proverbs 27.  But when you look at the way Jesus describes it, friend, was regarded highly by Jesus.

Jesus wants us to know what is in His heart and on His mind.  He wants the fire of God to burn within us.  He wants us to be passionate for Him.  But He wants us to search out the intimate things of God.

The interesting difference between a friend and a master is that with a friend you really have to trust them, but with a master you do what they say because they are in a position of authority and you honor and respect them.  You pretty much have no choice with a master, but with a friend you have a choice that you have to trust them.

Now don’t get me wrong, we should still regard God as the Sovereign God, and our Lord and Master, but there is a deeper relationship that He wants you to have.  He wants you to get to know Him.  I know I did a post on a similar subject before called Jesus the closest companion…but I think we need a refresher course.  Imagine that the God who created the whole universe is not just your friend, but your best friend.

Imagine you ran a red light accidentally and the cop was your best friend, the cop would probably say something like, “Ok, bud, this was wrong, but if I catch you next time, I’ll have to give you one.”

David had favor with Saul for the sake of Jonathan.

Now to put things into proper perspective, God is not just our best friend, but He is our king, and our ruler, and the principle authority figure in our lives.  But He wants us to know Him as our loving Heavenly Father first, but He is also very Holy and He cannot be around sin.  Sin keeps Him away from us.  Let’s take example lying.  Wouldn’t you be mad if someone lied to you?  Wouldn’t you be mad at your children if they didn’t do anything you said and were running a havoc around the house?  Even if you are married if your wife lied to you or she lusted after another man or women if your husband lied to you and lusted after another man, wouldn’t you be upset.  Some marriages people can’t forgive after adultery because they’ve been so hurt, God is the same way.  He doesn’t want you lying to Him or anyone else either, and since the Holy Spirit lives inside of you, He doesn’t want you abusing your body.  He doesn’t want you speaking bad things about His friends.  He wants you to respect and to honor Him as King.  That’s why you should respect and honor and fear Him not because you think He’s going to destroy you or send you to hell – but out of love of the heart.  God looks at intent of the heart.  He looks at motive.

The Bible says “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”

It also says in Ephesians 1:

¹³ In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, ¹⁴ who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.

This verse is conditional to the promise that you trusted in God.  If you don’t trust God as your friend that He really doesn’t want to hurt you.  That He really doesn’t want you to think that He doesn’t care for you, but because He disciplines or chastens you it is for your benefit.  It is so that He is trying to teach you something.  God is always talking, I mean always – everywhere.  Are we really listening to Him?

I’ve had to learn this lesson about trusting God has my friend first instead of one who wants to discipline me.  If your friend tells you, “Hey can you do me a favor?”  And your parents command you to do chores, who are you going to want to obey- your friend or your parents?  It may be the same exact thing.  I guess it depends on your relationship with Him…sometimes He’s your parent and sometimes He’s your friend, but sometimes He’s both.  He likes to play Good Cop and Bad Cop at the same time, but there’s nothing bad about Him, but it is to get you to admit and confess what you did was wrong and take responsibility for it.

Where are your priorities for God’s Kingdom?

This message is primarily for Pastors and leaders that may or not be in full time ministry.  Where do you spend most of your time?  Do you spend most of your time working for money?  Do you spend most of your time in ministry working, thinking that you are doing something for work?  Some leaders spend all their time with their ministry that they neglect their families and then they end up getting divorce or their children often feel neglected.  Don’t get me wrong, ministry work is good, and vital, and should take a very important part in a leader’s life, and even Jesus left His brothers and His mother outside, but sometimes in efforts of being shining lights to the world the most we neglect the very most important people in our lives and then their our home life suffers.

When you are trying to evangelize, and then your child comes to you asking you to pray for them, or maybe just to talk to them, do you turn them away and say that “No” I am too busy.  I just watched the movie “COURAGEOUS” yesterday, and it showed how these fathers learned the lesson of how to be good parents in instilling the Godly authority upon their children’s lives.  SPOILER ALERT:  The main thing that got to me was that the father spent so much time at work, that he didn’t have enough time to spend with his daughter and then his daughter died and then he went through emotional grief.

We don’t want to get to that place where mothers and fathers neglect their time with their children, or husbands neglect their time with their wives or visa versa.  It should be God first, family second, and ministry and/or work.  The way it is for most people is work first, ministry second, God third, family last.  Some people are in ministry and they haven’t sought the presence of God to dwell with them, that when they are in ministry they are just doing legalistic things, and things that just need to get done for the sake of evangelism.  This can be very dangerous.  If you have not repented and sought out God before you enter into ministry, and gotten into ministry, then it won’t matter if there is an interruption from your family members when you are going to minister because God’s presence will help you solve that problem when otherwise you would be operating out of your own flesh.  We should never get into ministry work out of a sense of obligation.  It should be a desire that dwells from the heart and something that comes from the inside that you are willing to lay down if God calls you to do something else and God has a way of interrupting plans.  If you have this mode of “I have to do it this way” and “be stuck in this schedule”, then God has no way of operating through us because essentially His will has to remain dominant in us.  We have to show Agape Love to people around us.  Don’t get into the trap of obligation.  You may have a purpose in fulfilling your ministry, but sometimes your primary purpose is to be a parent and instill values to your children so that when they have problems then they can go and depend on God.  If you don’t have children, then the intimacy that you have with God first, and then your spouse should be expressed in the relationship and I’m not saying that to tell you what to do because I know any better, but I can say that I know what results from people who don’t spend enough time with their families.  That’s what results in crime and violence, suicide, depression, and major problems because parents don’t spend enough time with their families and husbands and wives don’t spend time together realizing that this is a commitment that they have entered into for life.  It’s sad to see that some people will never get beyond where they are because they refuse to see the things that are wrong in their lives and change, I’m preaching to myself on that one.  Sometimes we see but there is so much of our own flesh in there and pride, that is not willing to subject to God and His ways and it all becomes about head knowledge and not a heart transformation.  What we need is a real heart transformation from God and that is what can help us to determine priorities.  As long as we don’t see the things that are dangerous and obstacles in our lives and the things that can become stumbling blocks, then the enemy will use our own weaknesses against us.  That is why it is good to have a good prayer life.

The Bible says “Seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness and the rest shall be added unto you.”  That is His way of doing things and His way of entering into His Presence.  He knows all the people’s needs.  You may have so many people that you want to evangelize or minister to, but sometimes if you have someone with a broken heart at home, then you haven’t really listened to God about what is important.  That’s why it is good for families to have a family altar, where they bring their needs and discussions before God, and discuss His Word and pray as a family so that they can grow closer together.  That may be difficult to do when some of the members of the family are not saved yet, but the ones that are should be as living examples of the light of Christ in whatever the believers in the household do.  Sometimes parents get tired of giving love to their kids especially when they are older, but as the movie COURAGEOUS talks about, the parents have to let the child know that they are adults.  If you have a ministry and you want to encourage your children and your household to have the Presence of God on your lives, then I encourage you to have a family altar.

 

The Book of Joshua says, “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”  This is the meditation for today.

 

Do not believe in false “Christs”- Jesus has not come back or reincarnated

After seeing a headline of an article in the news – that Jesus has come back in another place – I want to point out very clearly what Jesus said in Matthew 24:23-27:

²³ “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. ²⁴ For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. ²⁵ See, I have told you beforehand.
²⁶ “Therefore if they say to you, ‘Look, He is in the desert!’ do not go out; or ‘Look, He is in the inner rooms!’ do not believe it. ²⁷ For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Jesus said very clearly when He comes back He will be as lightning until then no one will be able to see Him.  Anyone and I mean anyone who claims to be Jesus and goes against His Word, is a liar.

After Jesus came back from the Mount of Transfiguration He said, “Now as they came down from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying, “Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead.”

The apostles knew that Jesus was going to rise from the dead so they were expecting to see that.  But about the end of the age, which is the last times, He made it very clear, that He will be as lightning coming from the east flashing to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

There is no mincing of words here.  There is no room for misinterpretation.  If you are deceived in the last days into believing that anyone claiming to be Jesus, there is great trouble ahead for you because no one is Jesus is accept for the One who sits at on the throne, and will be coming as lightning is from the east to west.

Anyone who comes saying that they are Jesus is a false “Christ” or even an AntiChrist and may even be the Anti Christ so don’t be deceived into believing in them.  So if you see an interview or see an article popping up showing that someone has done all these miraculous things, or whose philosophies sound convincing, or even live a pious and holy life, don’t believe it because John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God and the Word was God.”  That Word, is the written word Logos.  His Word is also exalted above His name.

Time is getting short people.  See that you do not be deceived.

 

 

 

 

 

Feasts of the LORD

I was reading in the book of Exodus today and that led me to a search and I found out some really interesting things. (WARNING I AM GOING TO QUOTE LONG PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE Most of which from the same version, I hope I don’t get sued for taking too much from one translation, but I couldn’t find any other that had the correct translations that I was looking for)

There are mentioned in Leviticus 23 mentioned some of the Feasts of the LORD…

The Passover and Unleavened Bread, The Feast of Firstfruits, The Feast of Weeks, The Feast of Trumpets, The Feast of Weeks, The Feast of Trumpets, The Day of Atonement, and The Feast of Tabernacles.

Usually when the Jews today celebrate the New Year, they celebrate it on the Feast of Trumpets, which is Rosh Hashannah, this is the first day of the month, on the seventh month, but today the people that celebrate Rosh Hashannah celebrate it as the New Year.

Exodus 12 says –

2“This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. ³ Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household.  ….

11 It is the LORD’s Passover.

So the tenth day after the first of the year (1st of Abib) is actually Passover not Pesach when it is usually celebrated.

Then is the Feast of Unleavened Bread…

¹⁴ ‘So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance. ¹⁵ Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. ¹⁶ On the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them; but that which everyone must eat—that only may be prepared by you. ¹⁷ So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance. ¹⁸ In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. ¹⁹ For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land. ²⁰ You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.’”

There are two types of harvests for feasts, there is the barley harvest, and the wheat harvest.  This was part of the Barley harvest.

Exodus 24:18 reiterates:

¹⁸ “The Feast of Unleavened Bread you shall keep. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, in the appointed time of the month of Abib; for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt.

The Feast of Firstfruits

⁹ And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ¹⁰ “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest. ¹¹ He shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. ¹² And you shall offer on that day, when you wave the sheaf, a male lamb of the first year, without blemish, as a burnt offering to the LORD. ¹³ Its grain offering shall be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering made by fire to the LORD, for a sweet aroma; and its drink offering shall be of wine, one-fourth of a hin. ¹⁴ You shall eat neither bread nor parched grain nor fresh grain until the same day that you have brought an offering to your God; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.

¹⁵ ‘And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed. ¹⁶ Count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the LORD. ¹⁷ You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits to the LORD. ¹⁸ And you shall offer with the bread seven lambs of the first year, without blemish, one young bull, and two rams. They shall be as a burnt offering to the LORD, with their grain offering and their drink offerings, an offering made by fire for a sweet aroma to the LORD. ¹⁹ Then you shall sacrifice one kid of the goats as a sin offering, and two male lambs of the first year as a sacrifice of a peace offering. ²⁰ The priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the LORD, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the LORD for the priest. ²¹ And you shall proclaim on the same day that it is a holy convocation to you. You shall do no customary work on it. It shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.
²² ‘When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any gleaning from your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger: I am the LORD your God.’”

The Feast of Trumpets

²³ Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ²⁴ “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath-rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. ²⁵ You shall do no customary work on it; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD.’”

The Day of Atonement

²⁶ And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: ²⁷ “Also the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the Day of Atonement. It shall be a holy convocation for you; you shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire to the LORD. ²⁸ And you shall do no work on that same day, for it is the Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the LORD your God. ²⁹ For any person who is not afflicted in soul on that same day shall be cut off from his people. ³⁰ And any person who does any work on that same day, that person I will destroy from among his people. ³¹ You shall do no manner of work; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. ³² It shall beto you a sabbath of solemn rest, and you shall afflict your souls; on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall celebrate your sabbath.”

The Feast of Tabernacles

³³ Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ³⁴ “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to the LORD. ³⁵ On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it. ³⁶ For seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the LORD. It is a sacred assembly, andyou shall do no customary work on it.
³⁷ ‘These are the feasts of the LORD which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire to the LORD, a burnt offering and a grain offering, a sacrifice and drink offerings, everything on its day— ³⁸ besides the Sabbaths of the LORD, besides your gifts, besides all your vows, and besides all your freewill offerings which you give to the LORD.
³⁹ ‘Also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of the LORD for seven days; on the first day there shall be a sabbath-rest,and on the eighth day a sabbath-rest. ⁴⁰ And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God for seven days. ⁴¹ You shall keep it as a feast to the LORD for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month. ⁴² You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths, ⁴³ that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.’”
⁴⁴ So Moses declared to the children of Israel the feasts of the LORD. [taken from Leviticus 23]

 

In Zechariah 14 it says:

^“16And everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths.

    ¹⁷And it shall be that whoso of the families of the earth shall not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, upon them there shall be no rain.

    ¹⁸And if the family of Egypt does not go up to Jerusalem and present themselves, upon them there shall be no rain, but there shall be the plague with which the Lord will smite the nations that go not up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

    ¹⁹This shall be the consequent punishment of the sin of Egypt and the consequent punishment of the sin of all the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

    ²⁰In that day there shall be [written] upon the [little] bells on the horses, HOLY TO THE LORD, and the pots in the Lord’s house shall be holy to the Lord like the bowls before the altar.

    ²¹Yes, every pot in all the houses of Jerusalem and in Judah shall be dedicated and holy to the Lord of hosts, and all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil their sacrifices in them [and traders in such wares will no longer be seen at the temple]. And in that day there shall be no more a Canaanite [that is, any godless or unclean person, whether Jew or Gentile] in the house of the Lord of hosts.”

Now after reading all that we wonder, if the LORD God had established all these feasts then why did Jesus have to come….

Malachi 2

“ I will send a curse upon you,
And I will curse your blessings.
Yes, I have cursed them already,
Because you do not take it to heart.
³ “ Behold, I will rebuke your descendants
And spread refuse on your faces, 
      The refuse of your solemn feasts; 
      And one will take you away with it. 
⁴ Then you shall know that I have sent this commandment to you,
That My covenant with Levi may continue….
⁵ “ My covenant was with him, one of life and peace,
And I gave them to him that he might fear Me;
So he feared Me
And was reverent before My name.
⁶ The law of truth^[a] was in his mouth,
And injustice was not found on his lips.
He walked with Me in peace and equity,
And turned many away from iniquity.
⁷ “ For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge,
And people should seek the law from his mouth;
For he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.
⁸ But you have departed from the way;
You have caused many to stumble at the law.
You have corrupted the covenant of Levi,”
Says the LORD of hosts.
⁹ “ Therefore I also have made you contemptible and base
Before all the people,
Because you have not kept My ways 
 But have shown partiality in the law.”

The priests had gotten lazy according to the previous chapter. The priests had made people stumble and had corrupted the law.  They weren’t concerned about giving the purest part of the offering to God, they gave whatever was lame and imperfect and considered that an offering, which He talks about in Malachi 1, ”
¹¹ For from the rising of the sun, even to its going down,
My name shall be great among the Gentiles;
In every place incense shall be offered to My name,
And a pure offering;
For My name shall be great among the nations,”
Says the LORD of hosts.

Most of these things are very deep in forms of types and shadows of Jesus Christ and the things He has done for us.  He has become our Passover, our Unleavened Bread, our Firstfruits, our Trumpets, our Atonement, our Tabernacles through the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit has become our Pentecost.  So even if people were trying to follow the Law to begin with – throughout the centuries it has changed into something else, but when Jesus came He put it all on the Cross.  Otherwise if the people of Israel were to keep all the statutes and ordinances forever without partiality, and they were able to maintain all the rules and regulations then Jesus wouldn’t have had to die.  He said, “If there is any other way, then let this cup pass from Me.”  But he became our cup of salvation, our sacrifice, our holiness.

Closing thought:

In Colossians it says,

¹⁶ So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, ¹⁷which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When rejection and strife has taken root

There are times in our lives when people whether intentionally or unintentionally have done something to offend or abuse us and we don’t know how to get rid of that pain.  Many times that pain manifests into physical sicknesses, and leads to things like heart problems, and just makes the condition of our bodies even worse.  One of the most profound Scriptures in the Word of God, is when Peter asks Jesus, “How many times should we forgive someone? Seven times?” Jesus says that we are supposed to forgive someone “seventy times seven” or 490 times.  That doesn’t mean that if they have done something to us 490 times, that we just stop forgiving them.

Sometimes it takes getting out of our own soul and flesh to kind of get a different angle of looking at something.  We must examine the facts and determine is this really what the other person did to me, or did I just perceive it that way.  The problem is instead of Christ being the center of our own lives, we have become the center of our own lives so when someone hurts we don’t see what we have contributed to that situation either in our own thought life, attitudes of our heart, or even how our own mind perceived a painful situation.

Granted that no one has the right to abuse you over and over again, but sometimes like Jesus said we have to, “Forgive them, they know not what they do.”  Many offenses happen between believers and these are the most dangerous kinds because we are in essence one body and when we hurt one another it’s like hitting ourselves over the head with a heavy book trying to give ourselves a concussion.

I used to when I was younger and hurt and when I felt unloved at one time, hit myself on the head with a book that was about a thousand pages hard cover because I just didn’t like myself and I didn’t think that anyone could sympathize.  God doesn’t want us hurting ourselves.  When you get a cut, you put ointment on it and a bandaid and let it heal, but many people sit there and let the wound get infected by not getting it treat properly.

Some of these wounds are bigger than a bandaid to heal, some of these wounds are so big, that it takes the mighty awesome power of the Holy Spirit to come it and clean it out.  One thing that we have to realize is that no one is perfect – NOBODY except for Jesus and God doesn’t expect us to be perfect.  One of the problems is when we do something to grieve the Holy Spirit, then we feel it deep with in our soul and then it gets manifested to our bodies.  Once it’s in our bodies it’s hard to get out.  You may have that sour feeling in your stomach and if it festers it can lead to an ulcer and if you don’t learn to let things go and forgive and lay aside the burden and the pain, but not in your own power, but in the power that the Lord has in his ever so abundant grace and make peace with Holy Spirit.

The greater you hurt, they greater your destiny.  The greater you suffer, the greater your destiny.  The problem is that that satan is scared of what you could possibly do so he wants to make you fear and doubt and worry and panic, be bitter, resentful, depression, discouraged, in rejection and in strife.

Some people don’t talk about their problems to the person that hurt them continually.  Some people just let it fester silently while they are sweet to them, trying to earn brownie points with them and God, but on the inside they are saying, “You really hurt me.”  “Why did God allow this to happen to me?”  They seethe on the inside and never confront the situation and are tormented on the inside and they are around people which the confide in who just make matters worse.  They gossip about these people because they are hurt and insecure on the inside and sometimes after someone has hurt them so many times, and the other person may not even be aware of what or how they did it, something inside them breaks, and they put up a wall of self-protection saying, “I will never let anyone hurt me anymore.  I will never let anyone get close to me anymore.”  They hold on to the hurt and they let it fester.  Nothing is more unpleasant than a festering wound.

When I was in the hospital I got a bed sore.  It didn’t hurt at first.  It kind of itched, but then it became a wound.  The doctors had to go and clean out the wound and the pus in the wound and it took months for it to heal.  It took daily treatment to heal and it had a scar.  It is similar to when Jacob wrestled with God, and God bruised his hip, and made him limp as a reminder of the experience.  We have to let the Holy Spirit apply treatment to the wound, and allow Him to help.  He wants to help us, but sometimes the wound has become so deep that it has actually become a tree of rejection.

Dr.  Caroline Leaf says in her book, “Who switched off my brain?”, that when people have negative thoughts and experiences it leads to toxic emotions and they have to replace that tree in the brain with another tree of life, which starts with forgiveness.  When we have this toxic emotions they make us sick and we cannot hold on to them.  We have to learn to let them go or they are forever seared into our subconscious, and they take root in our hearts and bodies.  Sometimes when we have these roots we feel sick to our stomach, or feel dread, and it is just like poison eating us up inside.

I can’t say that I have gotten to that point yet in my life where there aren’t any roots of rejection and strife in my life, but one thing I am learning is that you have to not judge others unless you be judged.  Sometimes we are so afraid of eternal judgment because we are judgmental ourselves.  If we have grace in our hearts, the grace of Christ, then we have nothing to fear in the day of judgment, because the Word says, “perfect love casts out fear”  so that we may have boldness in the day of judgement.  The main issue is love.  Love is what repentance is what love is all about.  When we love people and have high expectations of people and they hurt us, then that puts a sear in our hearts and we are afraid to love again.  We are afraid to be wounded again.  We don’t want to venture out and show unconditional love to someone just to have our hearts trampled on over again.  We want to be unbreakable and strong, but God doesn’t use the strong vessels, He uses the weak and foolish things of this world to confound the strong and the wise.  He uses the rejected people and the outcasts and He takes them under His wings and He covers them with His loving arm because He is El Shaddai, ever nurturing One.  Sometimes it takes coming to that place and saying, “I don’t understand what’s going on, and why I am in this mess, but I trust You God.”  Sometimes it may be that God is testing us just like He tested Job saying to satan, “There is no one like my servant Job, who is faithful.”  Sometimes we listen to people around us and they get us all messed up just like it did for Job and instead of going to God and just really being who we are when we are with Him, and stop trying to pretend to be holy and righteous and just saying, “I am a sinner and I know I might be wrong in what I am thinking, please help and change me.”

There are times when nothing works to change your circumstances, and you have been praising God all day and nothing seems to “work” that’s when you have come to know that God says, “Not right now,”  and you just have to wait on his timing.  One of the best things we can do in life is forgive others and receive forgiveness.  That it is the true spirit of Christmas because forgive means – for give.

 

 

 

Consistency and focus in Christian walk

One thing I am learning is about consistency in the Christian walk, and also what I say on my posts.  Forgive me if I seem to be going from one extreme because I am going on this journey along with you guys, and we are one Body so if I say something that doesn’t seem to be right or consistent with any of my messages, you can point it out, but just be patient with me.

When cooking a cake or even a brownie, you need to have consistency, and that means being smooth, or being the same everywhere you look.  In the Christian walk, it is ideal to not to believe one thing one day, and then the next day believe something totally different.  Because of media overload in this generation it is hard to remain consistent because we get so many differing viewpoints and it is difficult to distinguish or discern without a proper Biblical foundation, what to do when contradictions appear or people argue with you or even when your own curiousity gets you into trouble.  Through the Holy Spirit, you get guidance in your Christian walk, and sometimes it takes some time shutting everything off and freeing yourself from distractions to just sit there and study and meditate on God’s WORD.  Remember that satan is always there to try to confuse you and get you discouraged, and when you don’t understand what’s happening, what you need to know is “Trust God and lean not on your own understanding.”

While I was studying about consistency today I fell upon many passages in Psalms and Proverbs that mentioned about the consistently righteous.  But the passage(s) that really touched my heart were found in 1 John 3.

1 John 3:6-10

 ⁶No one who abides in Him [who lives and remains ^[e]in communion with and in obedience to Him–deliberately, knowingly, and ^[f]habitually] commits (practices) sin. No one who [habitually] sins has either seen or known Him [recognized, perceived, or understood Him, or has had an experiential acquaintance with Him].

    ^7[g]Boys (lads), let no one deceive and lead you astray. He who practices righteousness [who is upright, conforming to the divine will in purpose, thought, and action, living a consistently conscientious life] is righteous, even as He is righteous.

    ⁸[But] he who commits sin [who practices evildoing] is of the devil [takes his character from the evil one], for the devil has sinned (violated the divine law) from the beginning. The reason the Son of God was made manifest (visible) was to undo (destroy, loosen, and dissolve) the works the devil [has done].

    ⁹No one born (begotten) of God [deliberately, knowingly, and ^[h]habitually] practices sin, for God’s nature abides in him [His principle of life, the divine seed, remains permanently within him]; and he cannot practice sinning because he is born (begotten) of God.

    ¹⁰By this it is made clear who take their nature from God and are His children and who take their nature from the devil and are his children: no one who does not practice righteousness [who does not conform to God’s will in purpose, thought, and action] is of God; neither is anyone who does not love his brother (his fellow ^[i]believer in Christ).

In vs. 7, Apostle John is talking to boys, but this is applicable to all of us…that we lead a consistently conscientious life in order to be righteous.  Conscientious means painstaking, diligent, or persistent life.   Then in vs. 8, it has a warning about sin. The reasoning is that when you are born again, and have the seed of the divine God in you, you cannot sin.  He says that this is made clear that we are either children of God or children of the devil, and we cannot be both.

Once you receive the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and accepted Him as your Savior, nothing in short of blaspheming the Holy Spirit can take that away from you unless you choose to reject Him, after you once accepted Him.   When that happens that means that your foundation was not strong, but you can still recommit, and give your life to Christ again, if you have done that.  The only thing impermissible by God is the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit, which is looking at someone who is performing miracles in Jesus Name, and say that it is demonic.  That’s what happened when Jesus was performing miracles and the Pharisees said that He was “demonic”.

Now I am going to go into the issue of sin.

 

After the original sin, there was the sin of Cain, who brought an offering tilled from the ground, but the Lord did not respect it.

So the Lord said,  “Why are you angry? And why do you look sad and depressed and dejected?” Genesis 4:6

“If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin crouches at your door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

What was Cain’s sin?  It was, incidentally, to not love his brother, that led him into sin.  Because he was jealous that he God respected Abel’s offering more than Cain’s, he became sad, depressed, and dejected.  There is a lot of significance in the Bible to why Abel’s offering was more significant than Cain’s, and you can go very deep into that issue, but the emphasis is on, what we are to do with sin.

We are to master sin, but Jesus has already mastered sin, through His blood on the Cross.

1 Corinthians 8:3 says:
But if one loves God truly [ with affectionate reverence, prompt obedience, and grateful recognition of His blessing], he is known by God [ recognized as worthy of His intimacy and love, and he is owned by Him].

Affectionate reverence and awe comes with recognizing the spectacular amazement of who God is, and grateful recognition of His blessing can really take away a condemning mindset quickly.  But we often we get caught in a trap.

The enemy often comes to steal, kill, and destroy our love for God, one another and ourselves.  Delayed obedience is still disobedience.  We don’t want to disobey God, as children of God, and we want to please God with our faith, but then there are those temptations – those lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and that pride of life.  Some of you may be thinking that you have no lust of the eyes, or no pride of life, but how disciplined are we particularly in America, with watching what we eat and the lust of the flesh?  In this particular verse, the context was talking about eating food sacrificed to idols so that we can approach ourselves and others to be careful to offend anyone.

Before this verse was 1 Corinthians 8:2-

²If anyone imagines that he has come to know and understand much [of divine things, without love], he does not yet perceive and recognize and understand as strongly and clearly, nor has he become as intimately acquainted with anything as he ought or as is necessary.

Basically saying that if you think you know so much and are puffed up, and thinking, “I am better than you because I don’t eat these things,” then that’s the wrong attitude to have.  The “I am better than you” attitude is the absolutely wrong attitude have.  The Bible says  that we are supposed to consider others better than ourselves, and not to consider ourselves more highly than we ought.

How God responds to our disobedience is examined in Romans:

Romans 5:19
For just as by one man’s disobedience (failing to hear, heedlessness, and carelessness) the many were constituted sinners, so by one Man’s obedience the many will be constituted righteous (made acceptable to God, brought into right standing with Him).

I want to bring up a few more verse:

Romans 11:30
Just as you [Gentiles] were once disobedient and rebellious toward God but now have obtained [His] mercy, through their [Israel’s/Jews] disobedience. (emphasis mine)

 ³¹So they also now are being disobedient [when you are receiving mercy], that they in turn may one day, through the mercy you are enjoying, also receive mercy [that they may share the mercy which has been shown to you–through you as messengers of the Gospel to them].

 

Romans 11:32
For God has consigned (penned up) all men to disobedience, only that He may have mercy on them all [alike].

Romans 11:26-27

²⁶And so all Israel will be saved. As it is written, The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will banish ungodliness from Jacob.

²⁷And this will be My covenant (My agreement) with them when I shall take away their sins.

See because of what Christ did, He brought Gentiles into the covenant, He actually did this to provoke the Jews to jealousy, and not the other way around.  The jealousy in the sense (not like Cain with his brother Abel), but in the sense that they see what favor and grace that the Gentiles have and they want to have that.

We are made righteous through Jesus on the Cross, because we were sinners, He died for us.

We are supposed to be ministering the Gospel to Israel, God’s chosen people, according to these passages and what has been forgotten is that while we have been trying to minister the Gospel to the world, which is good, but God’s chosen people are neglected.

The Jews and Gentiles are actually brothers in covenant with a founding father in Abraham.  One by blood, and the other by adoption, but they are actually brothers under the same covenant of salvation.

I think I have strayed a little away from the point, but one thing we have to realize is that we must love God, love another as we loves ourselves.  It seems like an impossibly high standard for people to do on their own because they were born out of a natural tendency not to have a God kind of love.  Jesus said “Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as you love yourself, on this one commandment hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Sometimes this is hard to see in places in the Old Testament, and even in books like Revelation, but when you put Jesus into picture, when you shift your focus on to Him, then you will be seeing at divine vision.  You won’t need the glasses that you were so used to.  The whole book is the Bible and the Bible is all about Jesus and what He did so if someone else tells you otherwise than don’t listen to them.  The Bible is the WORD of God, and it is actually Jesus Himself as it is written in the Book of John.  His WORD, is exalted above His name, and definitely above any internet sites you go to.  When you study make sure not to go into too many different sources.  These are all lessons I am still learning.  Of course we need help and guidance in our walk, and the support of other believers, so reading and sharing and feedback on other blog posts is ok because this is how build up and encourage one another in this walk of faith.

We need to shift our focus off of sin, and more onto Jesus to the point where we become saturated with His love.  I mentioned about pruning and chastening of the Lord, but as I mentioned in the post about the Sound of Music, if you have love you are more effective.  I heard a pastor say today, “If the tree is full of sap then the leaves just fall right off”  That sap represents the love of God.  It is like Jesus said in Revelation 2:

Revelation 2

 ¹TO THE angel (messenger) of the assembly (church) in Ephesus write: These are the words of Him Who holds the seven stars [which are the messengers of the seven churches] in His right hand, Who goes about among the seven golden lampstands [which are the seven churches]:

    ²I know your industry and activities, laborious toil and trouble, and your patient endurance, and how you cannot tolerate wicked [men] and have tested and critically appraised those who call [themselves] apostles (special messengers of Christ) and yet are not, and have found them to be impostors and liars.

    ³I know you are enduring patiently and are bearing up for My name’s sake, and you have not fainted or become exhausted or grown weary.

    ⁴But I have this [one charge to make] against you: that you have left (abandoned) the love that you had at first [you have deserted Me, your first love].

    ⁵Remember then from what heights you have fallen. Repent (change the inner man to meet God’s will) and do the works you did previously [when first you knew the Lord], or else I will visit you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you change your mind and repent.

 The Church at Ephesus worked very hard and stayed away from all kinds of wickedness, but they forgot their first love.  They forgot the first love that they had for God.  They had forgotten their zeal and passion and in many ways it seems some people are in this place right now.

It is never too late to turn around and repent, or change your mind and in turn change your heart towards God.